Flutter
by goddessa39
Summary: A creature dies. A creature lives. All beasts are on a search for something. A wounded creature falls upon the path and a passing stranger picks her up and takes her home. Carlisle, Bella/Edward


Title: **Flutter**

Canon: _Twilight_

Rating: M for Mature

Timeline: Au of Twilight and OC onwards…

Characters: Carlisle, Bella, Edward.

Pairings: Bella/Edward with a hint of Carlisle/Esme.

Synopsis: A creature dies. A creature lives. All beasts are on a search for something. A wounded creature falls upon the path and a passing stranger picks her up and takes her home.

A/N: I read this outloud the other day and from 12:27 I read till 1:09 while making some edits.

* * *

It's cold out and the rain running down the harsh gravel street-the shape of the road twisted by the dark without real light-has gone red with blood, human blood, animal blood, friend blood, stranger blood.

Your blood.

His blood.

Choking, fighting tears. _Why are you crying little girl? What is this in your throat_?

Falling to your knees, there is no pain from your legs as you hit the ground and scratch the already scarred up skin. If you lived through this with a human body then white lines would criss-cross the edges and roundness of your body while highlighting the hollow emptiness of your mind. But there is nothing guaranteeing your future, not now? Huh. _Do you even care?_

There would be surprise that you feel nothing except that you do. There is a terrible pain, a massive hurt inside of you. Not in your knees but higher, above your naval and belly and to the side between the bone cage of your chest.

Your ribs constrict against your shirt and you don't even know that it is ripped. _Pain, pain_, and you smell the blood. It has long turned mushy under your fists and gone dark, though since when it first moved you could not determine that it looks black with the dim streetlights seemingly farther than the watching mound of cheese beyond the sky.

_Copper pennies rolling down a unicef bottle, creating a cyclone with the constant groan as they roll and roll downwards, circling, spiraling, then surrendering to the end of the drain before landing on the hard packed earth wet with rain._

You shake and shatter like shards of glass tossed from a cliff beside the ocean, _hitting each cliff rock as you crumble into the incoming tide._

Packed onto the earth, the soil swallows the rain water like lips swallowing tender hearted tears and the blood droplets mingling fertilize the ground below you. It is so damp and it feels as if you will never come dry, as if you have always been sodden with liquid earth.

_You are withering for this world. Or maybe, just maybe it is decaying for your own lessness._

Fluid streams around you like liquid air, though in the middle of the road the whole of the world seems to be on a single slope and you are on the bottom where the edges circle down and down and further towards you. The whole of the oceans have touched you and soaked up through skin and cloth. You are in the sand swallowing up the universe.

There is rain in your hair and in your eyes rolling down your cheeks. Wet skin clenches in your fists and even if you could comprehend what was pasted through all the way to the soul, you cannot. And still you feel tainted, unclean, a once-golden creature tarnished to decomposing copper and then black with dead moss.

_Is there anything growing inside of you but the nothingness?_

You look up at the sky filled with clouds, dark and vengeful like an upset god come to punish all those creatures who feel no fear of the dark unknown. You tremble, weak, and fearful but you have no idea what is going on. _Make it better, Daddy_. Your body is beginning to shut down and it doesn't matter; the feeling of ripping apart at the seams and becoming nothing takes over. You just want it to stop. _Please? _You don't care, cannot bring yourself to wonder at the _what _and _why _this is happening to you. _Stop, stop._

_Breathe, little creature, just breathe._ You gasp, your body rattled with an upset storm in itself._ Does it help any?_

Lungs fill with cold air and blue lips turn white and will go pink if you stay. _Will you stay? _Shudders wrack the small frame that falls into the water with a smack of solid fleshy mass against the icy particles of that which falls to earth like tears streaming down pinched cheeks or rosette buds.

The roaring in your ears picks up like chattering coins on the eyes of a soul swirling down, low, towards the Underworld, as little and inconsequential as they may be_. Is there something wrong little creature?_ Water tries to fill your lungs now, water filled with a pinkish hue. _What are you suffocating on now, little creature?_ There is pain, oh, there is plenty of that which fills your body. _What was your temple of flesh and bone_, though you are running out of blood and are recycling your bile, that which is covered in cold rain and turning the color of ice on a winter day where children yearn to run foot blades made for ice dancing?

Gasping, rolling on the soaked dirt and coming away with more, you turn, unable to breathe. Clawing, scratching, pulling at yourself. _What are you doing_?

There is red on your chest and slowly seeping outward like poison. _Are you okay, little creature? _

_Oh, I see. Someone has torn out your heart._ Red, so red where it is not black on your body.

You claw, search and search and find nothing but a hole. It is inside yourself. You may have wondered, _what is this pain?_ But your brain is silent and unresponsive. There is no intelligence working in you now; only a creature doing its best to go on to the next second, minute, hour, day, moment. Inside you scream but you are choking so the sound is part of you but not felling trees beside. You gasp, and sway with a sudden wind that bends you as if your blood roots you to the ground, joins you to the earth, curls you up in the essence of life that bends around you and sways gently, rocking you as if in a cradle haphazardly balanced atop the pine branches on a blue, moonlit night where the whispers once sung you to gentle dreams.

Shuddering further you stare at the sky before your eyes, so dark at night, roll backwards, turning white. Veins pop from your neck and down your skin and through you, pulling, tugging, stretching you. Spirit._ You are on fire girl-fight! Fight and do battle with what ails you. Fight! If you fight you will win, maybe_. The world tilts and you are pulled.

A wounded creature falls upon the path and a passing stranger picks her up and takes her home.

* * *

The night runs cold and howls from the dark, towering forest shake the witches watching for the hour of wakening, multicolored candles lit for those that are less than or more than any mortal man. White wax wreaks havoc on the nose and the watching willowy woman drags a single finger down the edge of the stick, topped with a flame, withering under the wind rushing past trees like spirits fighting off the fiery wicker man.

In the corner and empty cradle rocks, cool air running in the door and through a lightly covered window to sweep the graying blanket back to reveal an empty baby bed and dust that has not settled ever.

An unburned finger collects the pale wax and it dries warm before dissipating like ash over a red candle, flickering with a blue flame, burning hot yet giving itself no heat.

It goes out with little warning and the night suddenly seems cold and detached from the time before, as if changing calendars in order to make a new leaf in life. There is no sound. And then the sky opens up and rains down upon the land with darkness and mist in a cloudless night. There will be wet on the ground in the morning, a wet earth flooded with crimson tears of a flimsy creature with a scorned heart and burned soul.

* * *

_A wounded creature falls upon the path and a passing stranger picks her up and takes her home._

He smells her skin and blood and strange scent yet resists and the scent of tragedy and anger and hate and-

He does not know this feeling or smell or whatever comes from this girl. But she is human, maybe, smells mortal and dying. Ever the caregiver to those most of his kind consider food, he can do nothing but take pity on this creature.

Heart steady with rhythm greets him at his door as he paces smoothely like a passing wind through the green edges of the world and into society. It's a neighbor and next to this small beast in his hands the protruding man with a brown bowler cap and a suit that appears to be too long warn sounds scared with his pumping organ inside of the flesh chest. Her human beat from inside fluctuates and he can tastes that her mortality is coming to an end without even touching her.

Imagining the girl in new clothes stuck in a box and rotting away seems wrong to him. He thinks of her clawing, breaking fingers, eager to be free and get out of the wooden box without a name.

His nose curls in the brisk autumnal night. The man stinking of stupidity and greed of money has no worth for an unwilling pawn. Stranger still is the silence around a barely beating heart.

Worry.

A passing bit of light shines through a clear window from a torch and the curious frown upon a striking face looks on the wet, dirt-ridden scraps from the soaked creature on the table. It illuminates a pale patch of soft hair reminiscent of how the moon illuminates only a strand of the dark green ocean with no eyes to see.

There is surprisingly little time of thought as what to do with the little critter barely out of childhood he had come upon strangely in the back woods. Her bizarre scraps sodden with blood and dirt and yet more life blood, left of clothing mean nothing to him, and when she wakes up he will, perhaps, think to ask the cause.

* * *

_**Burn**_**.** _You are burning girl. Fire fills you, running through your temple and burning everything that is a part of you, a piece of you_; it is as if everything that makes you up has been placed on the stone spire inside the holy ancient temples previous to the modern world and offered up to those uncaring and unhelpful (_the louts_) beings that judge and assess, before taking you and putting you together. Red fire eats you in all ways and it is warm and glorious, and blue matches your skin.

You are more than just _you_ now. There is _more_.

There is feeling in you, and hunger for the world and _something_ so you sit up and look around. There is no wound or scar upon your body save for a strange mark upon your lithe and pale wrist, and a sore spot at your shoulder. No criss-crossing white lines mar your newly perfect visage.

The stranger greets you and though there is nothing sinister about him the knowledge that he may be feared fills you and yet you do not care. He frowns when you ask about your hand and a sound that seems low and melodic and it takes a moment for you to realize it was _your_ voice and _your_ sound and you are not screaming.

Hungry, you stand and ask for the location of the kitchen, and though he frowns with surprised confusion he follows, half amused. Maybe he thinks of you as stupid or naïve. He shows you the kitchen, still darkened. Searching, you cannot find the light switch but it must be on because your eyes do not wither in the dank dimness.

You see bread and take a slice, savoring the taste. It has a strange taste but you shrug because your insides feel strange and you are empty. You haven't eaten in… you haven't eaten in…

Confusion rips your faces, both. But you are for the memories not found in your past and his because you are not screaming for blood. You eat and are no longer hungry for food but you are hungry for _something_.

He takes you out into the night and offers you a dead animal. There is no disgust where there might be-but there is no memory for who you once were so maybe there is killing-of-beasts in your family? He opens the creature's throat and you nearly hurl your strange meal just consumed. It smells like death and… it smells and you cringe at the smell.

The stranger takes you up the path he traveled home and tells you the truth of all things. _Hmm_, you say, nod your head occasionally. Strange, that you do not disbelieve him. Still, you do not have anything to base his belief against and so it is fact. The place in your mind that gives you all the memories that make you who you are, is strangely blank, covered by a thick gray veil. _What are all your parts? _You are not sure if you even wish to take your hand and move it to the side.

The place where he found you is dark and seems burnt. It is filled with dark water and your face heats up. Holding your breath, you pass it on and find a tiny coin in the path not far away. A small warmth invades your body when he takes you home and makes you his child, sometimes niece, and sometimes sister or daughter.

And though the pain does not cease wracking your small frame, you still and endure. You do not relinquish your body unless you are alone in your uncle's/father's house and in bed. Strangely, sometimes your body wracks with not-sobs. Still, physical anguish is not your problem.

Sometimes you even sleep.

Because you have no name, he holds your hand and sometimes sings you to sleep in songs you've never heard and with tunes that have not been played in years.

He names you Penny. There is no real love of the name. You have trouble thinking of yourself as "Penny" but learn to react when it is called in a crowd. Your dark hair sparkles with a red shine, the color of that which smells of copper and shines.

You hate the smell of blood though it is tasted on your tongue for every breath. _Hold your breath, little girl. Do not breathe._

* * *

Time passes. It is strange to your mind that others are stunted and change. You are as you remember. Dark hair with slivers of blonde near gold and black string through your dark strands and then the bright light from above turns it red, occasionally. When the sun hits your pale flesh head on, you glow, like a firefly. It is a rule; _do not go directly into the sun. Do not draw attention to yourself. Do not fall ike childly Icarus rose and dropped down into the depth of the world. _Those rules are fine for you. Curling up with a book or walking at night into the world has a sort of soft comfort.

In mirrors, you are pale. The stranger who has become a father of a sort tells you it is part of your transformation. But something in you tells you your skin has gotten harder but not lighter.

Because you do not have to breathe, the clothes do not seem too restricting. Your problem is that, in the beginning, you had to be shown how to wear them, and you feel that there are too many layers and too much frill and too much necessity. Skin in public is frowned at and even the stranger who picked you up and saved you from death seems confused at your lack of need for full cover.

Time passes and there is a new house and a new town for the two of you. Six years you stay before moving on. They would notice if you were the same pacified, otherworldly creature with the same still face and still age. Reading is a hobby and there are a few you recall with such a striking clarity that fazes you over again and again.

You've been told how losing your past is not that strange but you feel that there should be something to remember, something that takes all your parts and creates the animal others called Penny. _You want your name_. That gray veil you keep covered. Pain inside of you scratches at your self and yet there is no urge to move it away. Maybe you wish to not remember. But why? That curious _need_ to _know_ may be your undoing so you cover your hands and occupy your mind.

Seattle is one place you've learned to start yet again and it rains and the water falls in a gently rhythm that helps you sleep like song and the night is cold with mist. You hate the rain but yearn it, too. It is a strange paradox. But then, you are a creature who eats mortal food; vampires drink blood and you cringe at hurt animals and faint when humans bleed. And yet you glow and do not age and are physically near indestructible. The beats of your heart match the slow crawl of your new father figure who becomes that man you love as if you were born from him.

It bothers you, being such a strange creature. He trusts you and loves you and so agrees not to let on to other creatures such as you should be that you are different, that you can sleep and eat and be in a crowd without wanting to rip a throat out.

Sometimes, you dream of candles spread around you. Sometimes there are only two. Both dreams come gently and feel strange and do something to your mind that snaps you up like a nightmare would. But they aren't nightmares just… strange.

At nearly 65 years of immortality under your theoretical belt (not even your father knows of the belt because you only where the men's' comfortable clothing in private where you do not have to be strapped in ridiculous dresses and skirts) the idea of sex is at the edge of you mind. But dear girl, vampires are a passionate lot. And when "Papa," as you call him when at work, meets a young woman not much younger than you were when you fell upon his path and fixes her leg, he walks around in a state of clouds and confusion.

You don't understand and it is mostly faded as a few years pass again.

Then.

Then the world changes.

Then the world changes and flips on its axis.

* * *

_Then the world changes and flips on its axis, tilting you straight off your usually-limber feet and dumping you into the arms of Edward Masen._

The year is 1916 and Chicago is a busy city filled with lights and smog. You breathe the air and then go still because it is smoggy and smelly and there is urine in the corner.

"Papa" has begun to work at the local hospital and you make your way towards him with a small basket of cookies. It is true that you have made them yourself, and you eat a batch of chocolate chip with nuts inside. You eat everything you can and yet there is no age or change in your figure.

The good Doctor will not taste them but will hand them out in good will to his patients and co workers and the good faith and friendly attitude they will bring is always useful.

There is always this pain inside of you, this feeling of sliding sharpened stones against those flat, black boards in a school room your eyes have witnessed, though your time feels mostly wasted. It feels like you have been struggling to find enough oxygen.

The world flips and your heart speeds up just half a second and your Papa turns his head, aware that your beat has changed. Are you scenting the blood down the hall and ready to go charging? But no, and you do not know what this loss of feeling his.

You shudder, though only the once-stranger that picked you up and took you home and taught you how to survive can hear or notice the difference.

And you slip down, without walking or turning or even moving, falling straight into the arms that have mysteriously appeared behind you. They catch you, pulling you up and leaning you back on your feet. You don't trip or startle or miss the step. Your grace as a vampire is even slightly unnatural; a word that you are used to when speaking of your… differences.

And yet…

Turning, you remember the polite response from somewhere in your lost past and, looking up, find yourself staring into bright green eyes like the trees above you in the spring air the nightly sing a cradle to soft rocking or… Words and breath fail you. Frozen in place, a human hand is holding you up and the beat of his heart moves and… your Papa frowns at you as your own barely beating heart speeds up to match it.

For the first time since the past that you cannot recall, blood pulls in your cheeks and gains a healthy pink hue. You are blushing.

Forgetting to pull air through your mouth for again, words fail you and he stumbles for his own polite explanation. Minutes pass as stuttering, stoppering words feel the space between you both. He looks away and you looks down, letting long gentle curls fall in front of your face and serve as a buffer between you and everything else in the world.

Without a clue as to what is going on, you both stop and he rushes off to find his father with a minimal break in his leg, and you just look at the man who has raised you in all your glorious strangeness. Without a word, you rush away, off through the hospital at human speed. Outside, when no one recognizes your figure or that anyone is there, the crowd is just a mass of flesh and you hurry through and off into the distance.

Hiding in the large house at the edge of town leaves you to your thoughts filled with shock and confusion and what you feel is anger. Though the pain has become just a white noise in the background, the tilted world that has suddenly been shown to you makes you weary, and before the man of your house arrives after work your body has fallen to the couch for a nap.

Morning comes with a bird swooping by the house and singing through the window in low coos. Flickering open, your eyes are adjusted to the rays of light. And a pale gull swings out in the distance, moving towards the cool waves beginning their graceful slump towards the open sun rising in the distance.

Waking, filled with no exhaustion and hungry you bushel to the kitchen to begin your experiments. There is nothing for you to do but a basket will find its way to a desk in the hospital as always. It is something to fill your days of nothing but those inane pleasures you still enjoy, time after time.

Butter, flour, eggs, milk create a batter. As you stir, your mind whirls through your list of remembered recipes and failures in an attempt to forget about the day before and the encounter and how your feet just slipped out from under you. You pull out a batch of small meat snacks, unburned with your uncomfortable distraction. They are packed away and covered in a basket. After two batches of cookies are packed away you spend time in the bath, luxuriating in the heat that "Papa" says he cannot feel. You dress, pulling the strings through the under-corset, glad you cannot breath through the restriction.

A hint of flowers in the air drags through your lungs and something in you suddenly feels so feminine that you stop, standing half naked in your room and just blanking your mind.

You are a vampire… _in a way_.

You do not give attention to humans who will mean nothing to you in the long run… _kind of._

Your pulse does not stretch the numbers of its beat and then flex to match those around you_… well, not usually_… but the blood still blue beneath your skin rushes through your lithe body, funneling through your strong veins and the air around you seems to twist and tilt as you gasp it in.

At the hospital in Chicago, you place a wooden basket weaved together in a time of boredom on a desk. Your kind guardian will find them and hand them out among the staff and patients. As your body turns and begins to slide silently through the hall, there is a figure in the distance, peaking in through a room. That blank and empty existence you relax in suddenly comes to a stop. There is something in front of you now. Someone. A human.

Stopping, you stare. Dark blonde hair with a tint of red atop warm chiseled features. He is beautiful. And when he turns and sees you, he too stills, as if coming upon a beauty of unparalleled appearance. Your slow heart picks up its beat and your face fills with your blood suddenly red with oxygen that is filling your lungs. You feel faint. Thoughts that run through you feel human to you like, _I'm not gonna faint_, over and over.

_Of course, if you faint, maybe he will catch you_. Your body must have a mind of its own because it is not made to handle the blood that is its own running so fast. You sway.

He moves toward you, _like a great cat up in the mountains sneaking through the great big trees and through the rocky outcrops that it will make its home_, and takes your arm, pulling you up and towards him and…

Too fast. You tilt into his arms and he catches you like you weigh nothing and he is the most dashing prince in the world. Blushing still, you make a noise in the back of your throat and he flashes a small smile. If you were human you would be swaying. _And you do._

But you've pulled yourself up on your two feet because you are not human. You are not human. But you feel like it when you are near him and everything become clear and meaningful and filled with something your emptied mind says it has never felt. That gray veil twitches but is still and strong.

He smiles at you as if your are the moon over the dark ocean, directing the waves to wade and wander; and you both speak.

* * *

You learn him without trying; find his habits, his interests his human things that fill the days of his life. Your hands clench when you look up at the neglected star and realise what you are doing. Sixteen is young for a mortal, Papa tells you, and there is something inside of you that feels mortal when you are near.

Papa questions you, is concerned, but loves you and so will let you be. It is not as if you are really fifteen as you have told the town. You are older than even your Papa pretends he is.

The days pass into weeks and you find yourself working to instill your presence into more open world. You smile, take names, spread your own and find ten invites on your mantle from around. They wont see you but the excuses will make rounds; a cold, you tire easily, a headache. The last is your favorite because the women in this time are as weak as always, almost savage in their in-fighting and naïve chatter. It makes you ill to listen to the drone of gossip and inane words.

Not everyone is so dramatic and so you pick a late party, tell Papa. He wishes to follow you, to find your fascination. Besides, it isn't as if he can remain within the white wards smelling of blood and remain an upstanding normal-Joe citizen in the daily life without moving in other circles.

There is a small numbered dress, all in blue. The navy color is accented with a lighter corral color and though you have no real taste for these gaudy clothes it is simple enough to dress in and move. The ends will rise just a little and circle around you if your feet are taken to dance. Lately your balance has sharply declined-though he is catching you. Twice in the hospital was followed twice more outside the doors and then again within those pales walls your saving Papa works within.

It is annoying.

Though you are a freak of a single kind in this world holding the secret of the vampires your grace has always had an oomph you have savored. And now your toes catch on a slice of wood or the edge of a too-long dress. The closer you get to the boy who makes your heart beat, your own blood flow, your lungs crave breath, also causes you to faint upon clean air.

You do not recall any life before an immortal man came upon a creature and took her home to become you, but there must have been something, important to someone. Your flesh is not a package erupted from thin air, a crack in the world. Still, for the first time you dream more than just the sunset in your luxurious sleep and words fill your sleeping chamber. It is as if you are human. _Were you ever human, girl?_

Inside, you are a worrisome creature, still that bloody and beaten thing that slipped into a dirt path in strange cloths. But for the first time you feel like it, the blood rushing through youthful veins and filling your body with hormones and human questionabilities.

You take a dark gray shawl with you. Some of the ladies in town will take it as no sense for taste but you cannot make yourself care. The clothing in this time is appalling to you, tight and so covering that the humans sweat. One day, you step out to find that damp water is coming from your own pores and you make a reminder to mention it to Papa. It is yet another strange encounter your body is experiencing. Something blames that boy, you want to pout.

In private, you even allow yourself to.

But you don't. There is something about him and it makes you want to… want to… you shake your head, dark curls moving from side to side, and walk on. Sixty years have gone by in a blur where thirty had seemed to move at the pace of a shelled slug. Yet all of these tugging feelings inside of you remain unexplainable and out of your grasp.

There are books your lithe hands have filled with curling words that expose the most inner selves of a flower or the soul of a lonely porter. Leather cases conceal whimsy words hidden secrets that have skipped you through the years like a rock tossed over a glowing pond, like a different sort of calendar. But this, this you don't know and are afraid to even name.

What would you call it?

You slip gracefully passed a carriage down on the street an acre away from the secluded land that leads you to the house you call your own of Papa's. Your vampiric abilities leave you unnoticed by those you tread passed and that is fine with you. Dark blue clicking shoes echo down an alley before you make your way through another street. Something catches your attention and before you know it, before you have time to scent the air or taste the newly acrid scent of paint a house away, you go still, and meet your unusually dark eyes against deep green.

He smiles, and red rises in your face. You don't know why. But it happens. You feel a sense of unease. There is no calm in you, just the stillness of looking into his eyes and being content with it. There is no hunter-to-prey or hunter-to-hunter view; just person to person and being caught up in whatever this is.

With a light grace of any educated young man he moves towards you, still keeping the appropriate distance. There is something to him and your lungs need another hit of oxygen so you take a small breath through your mouth without a humanly detectable movement. You shiver, the cool air suddenly stroking your light skin and small bumps pucker against your dress. This is something you recognize as a human reaction, a lowly mortal attention to danger or unease.

This time, when you quiver within your blue dress, he notices. Without a word he is taking off his dark black jacket, a long cloth he has renewed for the use of this walk, and slipped it over your shoulders. He's such a gentleman, such a strange and remarkable creature, you think.

_For a human_, is a thought that passes through your mind. But the truth is when you are near him your body is not the same as before and is like human too. For a while, the both of you just stroll along in the day that is treading close to night as if there is no one, as if you are two normal human people out for a comfortable walk. You feel as if you have been here before, could be here again.

_And you don't even know his name._

This is what causes you alarm, more than your strangely human reactions and body functions, more than your usually calm manner. You are walking with this stranger as if you have known him your whole life, as if you trust him. That you don't turn away with an inhuman stalk and leave him in the dark with his coat over your shoulders is some kind of joke to every major predator. _Though you don't know the name of this there is something in you that trusts him._

You could have listened to those he hung out with, could have paid more attention when you followed him home. But that would have meant stalking. And though you are of a kind that universally (_except for the one being that is you_) drinks blood, stalking and killing is not you.

Oh, you've dispatched a few annoying suitors over the years and critically hurt some men that have attempted to catch you as an unaware young lady, stalking and spying is not something you take a general hand in. So here you are, walking with a young man, younger than you but just barely older by the looks of him. The moon is beginning to rise to a full bloom over the trees and a nearby pond sparkles darkly in the park. A duck quacks in the silence.

He turns to you, thirty minutes into your calm silence, and puts his hand out an appropriate distance between your bodies. "Edward Masen," he introduces himself. It's the first thing you've heart from him tonight and probably the most beautiful.

"Penny Cullen," you say softly, your musical voice making its way from your throat strangely low. For as long as you have lived this life your name and voice have not changed, and yet you still blink stupidly.

Shaking his hand, his warm blood rushes through him and feels like a low and comfortable fire against your own skin.

"Beautiful," he whispers, half entranced, and the both of you look away, towards dark strand of trees and the pond separately. He blushes and you smell it, but you say nothing. The red in your cheeks is there again and the feeling is as new as that first meeting at the hospital in front of your Papa.

You take a moment and, still looking down, voice your thoughts. "I'm not beautiful. I guess I have some charm. But my best asset is definitely my hair."

He gives a small breath of air in disbelief. "Yes, you are. And it isn't just your hair, though…" he traces a small strand from behind your ear, curling it down in front of your body. You realize that both of you have stilled in your walking. "It does have its own charm."

The women in this early 1900 society prefer lighter hair where yours is spun in many colors but collects a darker shade. They pay close attention to dress and manner where you prefer to take on the simplicity of living and remain aloof. It is seen as a, while not a sin, a _fas paux_ to blush. Around this young man, a mere boy about to grow up, you seem to be pushing your own blood towards your inner cheeks like no tomorrow, when before there was no room in your cheeks for blood and though your body remained creating its own life source as if you were human, it was a strangeness that could be ignored.

Now, you could easily pass for human, and that is concerning you.

The two of you watch the moon rise higher in the dark sky of Chicago, Illinois as a small coven of ducks quack unintelligibly to one another. You exchange pleasant chatter and for the first time in a long time, you laugh with a sweet twinkle at the corner of your mouth that you do not recognize, though it feels familiar, like an old friend.

He walks you home an hour or so later and you feel content, though strange. The path has turned to gravel. You feel mortified about your balance most of all-he's had to catch you thrice the time you've tripped over a log, a stick pointing upwards, and an indentation in the dirt street. Normal girls look towards their clothing and hair and whether their eyes turn discreetly. But no, not you. No, you have to have all of these weird characteristics.

There does not live inside of you any wish to be human because, as you get closer to this young Masen, the more mortal you feel.

"Papa is still gone," you mention as coming upon your dark house tucked among the beginning of the green foliage that is being swept away by societies need to build. He looks around and twitches. He must be uncomfortable. "Do you want to come in?" You're just being polite.

He grins but shakes his head. It wouldn't be the thing to do. You say goodbye, shake hands and hold them just a little bit longer than any normal shake.

Before he turns to let you enter into your abode, he takes your hand again in his. "Can I call on you?"

You smile, tilt your head gently, letting your curls bob just a little. "If you wish to."

Stepping in, you watch him leave from your bedroom window, watching him walk to the edge of the property and down the darkened corridor leading back to town. Pulling the jacket tightly, fingers grasping the fabric and blanketing it to your sides, it occurs to you that your feet hurt even if the rest of your skin feels prickly, while your bones and muscles act as if you are floating in the air.

Soft and plushy, your covers move to hug your body as you fit yourself down in your large bed, the bed chamber warm with a light glow, the fire humming from the fireplace. Your mind wonders, exploring the corridors of your thoughts and every detail of your memory, picking details apart and putting names to them. You feel so different, so young and fresh.

The name of this emotion that you are feeling occurs to you, and though you do your best, there is no use simply naming at a crush.

**There are three that you are absolutely positive about:**

_One is that you are a vampire_. Only, you don't drink blood-you love food, you seem to have acquired the ability to blush, and the bloodlust and urge to kill that even your Papa can feel is mostly absent.

_Two is that there is a part of you, being a vampire, that must somehow desire that boy_ you are confused about-whether it is simply your connection to blood in itself or something altogether different is yet to be determined.

_And third_-you take a breath and make yourself admit the truth- _you are unconditionally and irrevocably in love with the human Edward Masen_. Even though you hold no understanding for experiencing love for more than your Papa, the way your heart speeds up and your brain turns to mush by falling into his arms is telling.

All you can think, as you wait for the man of your house to come home for the party that you've accidentally missed, is that this is very weird, even for you. Your eyes slip closed and your body relaxes and your mind conjures up a very interesting dream of green eyes, bronze colored hair, and spending forever with him.

And your heart beats in your chest like a caged butterfly, sending small tendrils of soft sensation through the whole of your body.

* * *

You are wakened the next morning by the maid, Francine. She is a sweet if oblivious woman with a lack of schooled learning and the appropriate idea that what she sees is to not leave the house. Well, she doesn't see much but Papa has prepared for many 'what-ifs.'

Papa desires to talk and for a moment and you are worried until the bright sunshine spills across your body and your pale flesh suit sparkles like mined diamonds carved into a caricature of your frame, yet feels warm beneath the kiss of the sunlight. He won't be working today and you feel this is good; he works a little too much as it is. It is still healthy, even for a vampire who does not need sleep, to take some time to take in some relaxation and a good book. He will say that had a sick stomach, when he writes to the hospital. He will say that he slept off some exhaustion and ate a large dinner with his young daughter, Penny.

It is obvious to you that he will instead choose to stay inside and read a book or two before traveling into the large greenery to feast on some unsuspecting furred animal. Time is spent in the living room, talking of this and that, and nothing, before the topic travels to the night before. You do not blush in front of the vampire you call "Papa" but the stilted speech and muttering that goes on is telling enough.

"Penny," he begins, and it takes you a moment to realize he is speaking to you-that name is not yours as much as you use it, "just be careful."

"I will, Papa," though you don't know what to do. What should you do? Walk away, ignore him, and move on to the next town to evade amorous suitors.

When he calls on you with a note, there is nothing to do but resist, but you do not. The clouds fall back into the sky by noon and you are walking towards his residence. The viridian dress you wear is plain with a hint of sophistication as to the class that your dear Papa is part of. It weaves through the crowds you pass through without notice. It would make no difference as to your even stride or speed if you were wearing a pair of men's pants.

Though as light as a feather floating on the wind, you too feel as if you are heavy, looking for any reason not to go. "Don't be stupid," you say to yourself. "You said he could call on you, allowed him to walk with you and even hold your damned hand. Go through with it." You shouldn't, but after all these years it has become apparent that you do not always follow your own rules.

Your speech is too fast for humans to even realize you are talking, your lips looking as if they have never opened. Taking in an unneeded breath, it occurs to you that maybe your lungs are actually using it for once as your hands rub together, nervously.

Stepping up to the door, you pull on the small silver bell. The maid, a dark skinned woman with good teeth and a special pedigree, opens the door and sees you over to the parlor. A pretty woman with those familiar green eyes and dark blonde hair is sitting on a love seat, a pair of knitting needles in her hands and a deep purple scarf fragily hanging from the weaving. You know what stitch she is using as you had picked that up for a while before leaving it behind for your books as you always do with any of the time wasting experiences.

She smiles at you, warmth pouring from every inch of her motherly body. You exchange pleasantries. Though this woman is nice you feel odd, waiting for Edward to come sauntering down the stairs.

"So, your name is Penny?" Elizabeth Masen asks, with a curious frown. She tilts her head to the side, as if trying to fit the name to you. It doesn't work.

Your name is not 'Penny' though your Papa has called you such. It is fact that you do not know your own name. That is one of the main reasons you wish to lift that shimmering gray veil, if only for a moment. You wish to find your name.

There is not much to say to that. What should you? Thankfully, her question is forgotten when her only child comes downstairs in a rush. He doesn't see you at first, he's moving so fast, as if panicking. He halts when he sees you, and you meet eyes, your strangely deep brown to his lightened green and the world halts, for just a moment, before taking up its usual slow pace again. His face too fills with red.

You see his mother give him a _Look _and smile, before you leave together.

If ever there was a moment when you wanted your own name the most before now, you cannot recall it.

Edward takes you to a small diner. There is the appropriate watching crowd there to make sure neither of you gets too close, chaperoning your every move loosely. It is surprising how the two of you are already talking without words or names, though the sound of his name, "Edward," flows off of your tongue feels like you are speaking French.

There is a secret love for the French language, the language of love. It falls from you and wraps around him, as if squeezing him and for the first time you find that your presence is doing to him what his presence is doing to you. There is a part of you that feels equal in a way you had no idea could happen. Being a freak of nature certainly has its isolating qualities.

He holds your hand gently, after looking to you for a reaction. When you give a small blush and look down, he prepares to let go of you but you firm your hold, not wanting him to leave at all. "I'm not quite that delicate," you almost say, when walks slowly beside you and readies himself to hide your body from the rushing cold action of the streets. But you don't. He already can see that you are not normal, are not some fragile little miss that will be used, abused, then thrown to the ground in her death.

You walk with him, small steps and soft murmurs filled with smiles and small looks, and your cheeks fill with your unique blood quite often you feel dizzy under the warm sun for just a moment. When he smiles at you, a thin crooked grin filled to the top with mischief and at the same time, something that fills your body with warmth, your insides almost shudder.

For the first time, you've experienced a lot of them lately, your instincts-those human things that have repressed themselves in the depths of your mind-you want to kiss a human; this growing man is sweet and edgy and makes you go all gooey in places you hadn't known still existed for you and are not going to speak of them to anyone. Not anyone.

"I am learning french," he tells you, and eventually, he calls out to you, "ma Belle_," my beautiful._

_Ma bella, are you hungry? Would you go for a walk with me, ma belle?_

"I am not at all a beauty," you say to him, but take his hand. "But yes I will walk with you and we can eat at the diner."

Eventually, he just calls out to you as "Belle." And your heart flutters in your chest.

The plague sweeping over the country will soon give you your mate and you will both be vampires. And then, you will forever be _Edward's Belle,_ and the grey veil, like your heart, will flutter.

* * *

END... P.S. Like all writers out there REVIEWS are welcomed, wanted, and respected... plus they up our muses' muse-juice.  
P.S.S. What do you think are the correct genres to put this oneshot fic in?


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